Borloz.com

From time to time, I'll come across a blog or article on the web where the person has chosen to remove the underline from their links and/or change the link color, but didn't make the color easy enough to distinguish from the body text. This seems to be especially common for links that have already been visited, because the default color for visited links is a dark purple, and most text on the web is black. I grew a little frustrated with this situation and thought it might be helpful to create a bookmarklet that highlights all the links on the page.

To use the bookmarklet, just drag the link below to your bookmarks bar.

Link Highlighter

When the highlighter is active, you'll see a "Remove Link Highlight" overlay at the top-center of the browser window. To disable link highlighting, just click the overlay text.

So far, it's been tested and working in Firefox 2/Mac/Win and Safari 3/Mac/Win.

Known issues:

• Does not work in IE - I keep getting a vague error message about an error at line x, char x and simply haven't spent the time to get it working right for lack of a decent way to debug JavaScript in IE.
• Does not highlight links in iframes.

Please leave me a comment if you find any issues not mentioned above. Be gentle - this is my first bookmarklet, so there may be other issues I'm not aware of.

Since this bookmarklet was created for personal use and currently meets my needs, I'm debating on whether to fix the above issues. However, if there is enough demand to fix them, I'll certainly consider it. Please leave a comment to let me know that you are using it.

Also, if anyone knows of a decent way to debug JavaScript in IE without purchasing Microsoft software (Office or Visual Studio), please let me know.

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My new TiVo arrived today, and it's not just an 80-hour unit, it also has dual tuners! This means I can record two shows at once, or watch live TV while another is recording. Woohoo!

Thankfully, I didn't have to go through the activation process again. When I setup my original TiVo, I had to bring it to a friend's house to use his phone line, since I don't have a land line. I guess since I had already activated my account, I didn't need to go through whatever requires the phone line.

So it's no more live TV for me anymore. Let's hope this one holds up a little better than the last...

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Just got an email from TiVo saying that my new 80-hour TiVo is on the way. Apparently, they really were out of the 40-hour units. Worked out to be a great bargain for me! All I paid was $10.99 to ship the old one back, and in a few days, I'll have one that's 2x the capacity!

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Remember that game called Memory (sometimes called Concentration) from when you were younger where you'd start with a grid of cards face-down and then flip them over two at a time until you had matched all the pairs? Well, my co-worker Paul and I were talking a few months back and he thought that it would be cool to create a web version of the game using your own digital pictures as cards. So, I got to thinking and realized that a lot of people already have a bunch of pictures on Flickr. I had wanted to check out the Flickr API anyway, so this was the perfect opportunity.

That night, I went home and started reading up on the Flickr documentation and began coding a game that allowed users to generate their own virtual "deck of cards" based upon the tags they entered and/or their Flickr username. I had the it mostly done, but then had other things come up and I dropped it for a while. It wasn't until last night that I finally ended up finishing it up.

So, here's the link to the game:

http://borloz.com/games/flickr-memory/

And here's how it works:

• Enter your desired tags and/or your Flickr username. (For example, if your photo URL is http://flickr.com/photos/lborloz/, then lborloz is your username.)
• Select whether you want to match "any" or "all" of your tags.
• Select your level of difficulty. ("Easy" will generate a 4x4 grid. "Hard" will generate a 6x6 grid.)
• Click "Play!"
• Try to match all the tiles in as few moves as possible. (A perfect game on the "Easy" setting is 8 tries. A perfect game on the "Hard" setting is 18 tries.)
• Have fun!

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